The first silent film in Tamil, Keechaka Vadham, was made by R. Nataraja Mudaliar in 1916. The first talkie was a multi-lingual, Kalidas, which released on 31 October 1931, barely 7 months after India's first talking picture Alam Ara By the end of the 1930s, the legislature of the State of Madras passed the Entertainment Tax Act of 1939. Tamil cinema later had a profound effect on other filmmaking industries of India, establishing Chennai as a secondary hub for Bollywood, other regional film industries in South India, as well as Sri Lankan cinema. In its modern era, Tamil films from Chennai have been distributed to various overseas theaters in Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Malaysia, Japan, Oceania, the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America.
The industry also inspired independent filmmaking in Tamil diaspora populations in Malaysia, Singapore, and the Western Hemisphere.